Government must do better

Photo by Prasesh Shiwakoti (Lomash) on Unsplash

At the current rate, it will take us about fifteen years before we are able to gather herd immunity or have vaccinated each and every Filipino.

By Alexander Padilla

I have been thinking. We have received 600k of Sinovac, another 500k of Astra-Zeneca and another million of Sinovac by end of March.

So that is about two million vaccines for March, 2021. Assuming we get two million vaccines every month, that would mean about 20 million shots by end of this year or about 10 million people vaccinated by year’s end since aside from Johnson & Johnson, all other vaccines require two doses. This is assuming we get the vaccines timely and are able to inject into our arms effectively and speedily.

At this rate, it may take us about ten years to vaccinate more than 105 million Filipinos. Further considering that after one year, we may have to repeat the process again for everybody, because efficacy would probably be good only for one year. This means re-vaccinating the entire population every year or so often.

Thus, at the rate the vaccines are arriving and how fast we vaccinate, revaccinate every year, at the current rate, it will take us about fifteen years before we are able to gather herd immunity or have vaccinated each and every Filipino.

THE GOVERNMENT MUST DO BETTER, PLEASE, FOR ALL OUR SAKE.

This was posted on Padilla’s Facebook page. Padilla is a former Health Undersecretary and president/CEO of the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth)